BIBLE BALONY
There’s been a lot of stuff on the internet lately -perhaps because I write about and look into what others are writing about such things. Aside from the fact that most of it is about selling us a wide variety of edition of Bibles, the rest of this stuff is advertising versions of the Bible that are largely comic books or watered down popularizations. The simple fact is that almost none of the stuff advertised is really the Bible. Not only is almost all of it offering various renditions of the totally outdated King James version from 1611, but almost none of it backed by any kind of scholarship.
Thus people are still left in the dark about the facts of the seriously different manuscripts from which the Bible is complied. Not only is the King James version a very poor translation, but it is based on only four of the hundreds of Biblical documents scholars now have. Moreover, these advertisements are written as if there is only one “Bible”, as if we have one copy of it somewhere kept in the Smithsonian Institute. Of course, many if not most of these different manuscripts say roughly the same thing, but occasionally there are serious, important differences in the different ancient manuscripts that need to be noted and explained.
In fact, there is even one verse in the King James that does not appear in ANY manuscript at all. It’s First John 5:8 which reads: “There are three that bear witness in Heven…”. Evidently somewhere along the line someone thought it would be helpful to bolster belief in the Trinity by inserting this verse in John’s First Letter, even though there is not any manuscript that has this verse. The reason this must have seemed proper to insert is most likely that at some point in early Christian history the doctrine of the Trinitarian Nature of God.
The issues concerning what the Bible actually says and what should be included in various editions of it are serious issues and warrant careful thought and some sort of editorial and scholarly supervision. It is important and helpful to have a variety of translations of the scripture, but serious care must be taken to respect and not distort its texts and message. In some places and times people have overly revered the Bible, turning it into some sort of magical object or Ouija board.
In our day and age it has, in fact, become common among the vast number of Christians to essentially ignore the Bible altogether. However, it is not helpful as a kind of an effort to overcome this sort of distortion by making the Bible either a “Holy Object” which only the “experts” or Church Divines can understand and explain, or to so over-popularize it as to render it of little or no importance at all. The Bible does not need either to be watered down or to be idolized. It needs to be read thoughtfully and understood.
4 responses to “BIBLE BALONY”
Right, Jerry. The KJV has been clocked at 3,000 translation errors (most not very important and some prudishly deliberate: the wings of the angel in—was it Ezekial?—did not cover its “feet”). The more ancient manuscripts we uncover, the more we need to return to the hermeneutical knots of scripture. And we need to do that rather than lapse into “popular” translations or arcane scholarly texts. I should think about what I am saying, though, because I myself am producing a version of the Psalms that can be read liturgically in the Christian churches (and is de-gendered!). But I am doing this as literature more than as Biblical scholarship. I have been reflecting on the Lord’s prayer and have some objections: Recent discoveries, especially in “Q”, shows that the prayer was a liturgical prayer used by John the Baptist before it was affirmed by Jesus in the gospels; it is we, not God, who is to make “hallowed” (holy) the name of God (should we after all be Jehovah’s witnesses?); we must have forgiven everyone of sins against us in order to be forgiven for our own (who has ever done this?); is the “kingdom” referred to in the prayer the one that is not of this world, as Jesus said, namely, the church, or do we await the second coming of Christ?; should we stop having plans for our lives and chosen directions, relying only on daily feedings from God (thus creating a world of bums)?; and, really, does God deliberately lead us into the trials of life (let alone “temptations”), causing us much suffering? And, at the end, the Devil is pretty important in this prayer, since we beg to be delivered from him/her. The power and the glory business is, of course, a later emendation. And don’t even get me started on the Apostle’s Creed!
WOW – lots of vigor and info here. Thanks David. Let us know when and where your version of the Psalms will appear :O) Nice insights there, too. Paz, jerry
Recently, I’ve been reading Amy Jill Levine’s writing. She’s a Jewish NT scholar. We had her on Zoom a while back talking about her book, “Short Stories by Jesus,” and she claimed to be religious but not spiritual, turning a present-day mantra on its head. She affirms the Bible should be read for meaning not for facts or history.
Very interesting :O) I think she is somewhat right, but there is a lot of theology in the Bible too (as well history, politics, etc.) I agree that when dealing with Jesus the focus ought to be on his ministerial style: stories and interviews with people, etc. I’m not sure what she means about being “Religious but not spiritual” Sounds “academically religious” ? Thanks for the input my man :O)
Paz, jerry